Self loves Kahlua. Ever since the mom of one of son’s friends gave self a big bottle for Christmas. She tried it with coffee, she tried it with milk, she tried it on the rocks — every which way tasted good.

It is the Friday before Labor Day, which must be why, at last night’s San Carlos Farmers Market, it took her 20 minutes to find a parking space. And today, at Marina Mart, same story. Grrrr!

Now, self is at home. Now, she can relax. For some reason, she has something called the “Kahlua Recipe Book.” It’s just a little pamphlet, very old (Self has no idea how this thing came into her possession). Leafing through the various recipes, she sees:

Kahlua Black Russian (involves vodka, of course: Speaking of which, The Man has a humongous bottle of Ketel One just sitting there on the kitchen counter, next to the microwave. Must be lonely. Self must remember to keep it company)

Kahlua Aggravation (Kahlua and Scotch: Speaking of which, self mailed, from Edinburgh, two bottles of whiskey. Each bottle was about a hundred dollars. Don’t ask about the mailing! Suffice it to say that the shipper in Edinburgh was so efficient, he even e-mailed self just to let her know that the whiskey had made it through customs, without being taxed! She got this e-mail while she was in Bonnyrigg Library. She nearly did a jig right there)

Kahlua & Schnapps (Self has no Schnapps)

Kahlua Brave Bull (Kahlua and Tequila: The Man does have about 1/4 glass of Hornitos Tequila left, he’d probably notice if that went missing)

You see how self has caught up with her “pile of stuff,” dear blog readers? She’s now only two weeks behind in her reading of the NYTBR.

Most of the 19 August 2012 issue is boring stuff (like Martin Amis’ new novel, which is about a lout, what else is new). But self takes heart from the fact that Marilyn Stasio reviews a new thriller by Norwegian crime writer Karin Fossum.

Last year, or was it two years ago, self’s life seems on such a hectic trajectory lately that she loses track, she read Fossum’s The Indian Bride and was transfixed (to know just how transfixed, read self’s Amazon.com review of same).

Fossum’s new book is about a creepy teen-age sadist who thinks of ever more inventive and dangerous ways to torture other children. Oyy, self knows that sounds exceedingly dark. But you should see what Stasio has to say about Fossum’s other thrillers: The Water’s Edge is about “a sympathetic pedophile” (!!) and When the Devil Holds the Candle is about monstrous “old people.”

Another mystery Stasio reviews is Michael Koryta’s The Prophet, and although self is irritated by the fact that the book has the same title as the other book by Khalil Gibran, she wants to read Koryta’s because it is “about two estranged brothers,” one of whom is “a practiced bail bondsman but an inept private investigator” who “unintentionally delivered” a teenage girl “into the hands of her homicidal stalker.” Yikes! Dark to the nth power! Just self’s cup of tea.

(Of further interest in this NYTBR is a review of a book that sounds like “Hurt Locker” circa London 1940: The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows, by Brian Castner. And a slashing attack by a male reviewer of a young, female writer, an attack that lays her out, a killing blow. Self will leave reviewer and reviewed un-named. Suffice it to say, the publisher will not be long in responding, self is sure)

The book she returned to the library a few days ago, Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves, which self couldn’t finish, stays in her memory. While the book she is currently reading, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck is getting just a wee bit tiresome.

In the Fall 2012 issue of Willow Springs is a poem by Laura Kasischke called “The Drinker.”

Self has always envied this writer’s last name, she doesn’t know why. She likes to repeat it, pronouncing it wrong, of course. Boy, what if her last name were Kasischke and people wouldn’t know she was from the Philippines blah blah blah. The worst of it is that now she decided to get at least 30 Facebook likes for her second collection, Mayor of the Roses, and there are some who say, “Hope your sales increase!” as if that were the point.

But, self, what is your point? Facebook is a marketing tool. Isn’t it? Isn’t it? Guess that’s the way it comes off and who knows why self set herself this goal for the week, she just thought: How awful it would be to die and only have five people who “like” Mayor of the Roses!

She knows it came out quite some time ago, but still it hurts that the woman who reviewed it for the Chronicle gave it only two stars on Goodreads (The woman is not Filipina, thank goodness, or it might hurt more)

So, back to the Kasischke poem. Here are the first two verses (and for the rest, you’ll have to go to Willow Springs)

“The Drinker”

Who paid his taxes
Who raised his children
Who buried his dead
Who put his fist through the drywall once
And, once (just

once) sipped
from another man’s cup

But who never arrived late for the christening
Who kept, as suggested, his receipts,
Who, when the crippled girl needed
his seat, leapt
to his feet

Who

was smarter than we were, truly, so that

in order to under-

stand us he needed to drink

And, finally, a fragment from Geronimo Tagatac’s short story “What Comes After Nineteen” (Chautauqua Literary Journal, Issue 2, 2005). Self has been reading Tagatac’s stories here and there, and is much impressed and wonders if he has a collection? She’d love to buy it, if he does. He deserves to be widely read:

“What Comes After Nineteen”

When she looked up, the guy was standing there, on her side of San Pablo, holding a cardboard sign that proclaimed “East.” He had the easy look that her father had when he appeared to her, three days after his funeral on a Berkeley street. And the hitchhiker stood, as her father had, with most of his weight on his right leg. Around him the same indentation in the air, as though he were leaning against the background of the street and might push through it and vanish. He was smiling like a man who’d solved a complicated problem. Much later, Sandina would wonder why she stopped for him.

Self found, after googling, that Geronimo lives and writes in Salem, Oregon. Which makes him practically shouting distance from the fabulous folks at Calyx Press.

Self felt quite beyond the effort to water and plant (one new lantana and one new Euphorbia “Tasmanian Tiger”)

She was doing chores in Menlo Park and decided to splurge on

TA-RA!

A hose. In fact, the mother of all hoses.

The Man has patched up the old one in numerous places, so that it doesn’t even look like a hose anymore — it looks like the victim of a car accident, all done up in grey plaster. Or maybe like a piece of conceptual art, green and grey, coiled fetchingly on the dry brown grass.

She decided to be bold! She wondered how much a really good hose would cost — one that didn’t spring a leak after one summer’s worth of watering.

She tried the Ace Hardware on Santa Cruz Avenue and found, tucked away on the lowest shelf way way waaay in the very back of the store, this beautiful green garden hose, touted as “the last hose you will ever buy, treated and sealed to protect against mold and abrasion, all weather construction for year round flexibility, made up of patented foam layers for added flexibility and resistance to kinks, over 500 psi burst strength, heavy-duty collar, machined full-flo brass couplings, 8 ply . . . ”

“Wolves to Slaughter” in July/August 2012 issue of Utne Reader (The article originally appeared in The American Prospect)

In April 2001, a U.S. government wildlife trapper named Carter Niemeyer choppered into the mountains of central Idaho to slaughter a pack of wolves whose alpha female was famed for her whiteness. He hung from the open door of the craft with a semiautomatic shotgun, the helicopter racing over the treetops. Then, in a clearing, Niemeyer caught a glimpse of her platinum fur. Among wolf lovers in Idaho, she was called Alabaster, and she was considered a marvel — most wolves are black or brown or gray. People all over the world had praised Alabaster, had written about her, had longed to see her in the flesh. Livestock ranchers in central Idaho, whose sheep and cows graze in wolf country, felt otherwise. They claimed Alabaster and her pack — known as the Whitehawks — threatened the survival of their herds, which in turn threatened the rural economy of the high country. She had to be exterminated.

When Alabaster appeared in Niemeyer’s sights, a hundred feet below the helicopter, her ears recoiled from the noise and the rotor wash, but she was not afraid. She labored slowly along a ridge, looking, Niemeyer says, “like something out of a fairy tale.”

Then he shot her. At the time, wolves were considered a rare species in Idaho and across the Northern Rockies, and they were protected under the Endangered Species Act. But they could be targeted for “lethal control” if they made trouble — if they threatened a human being, which almost never happened, or, more commonly, if they were implicated in attacking cattle and sheep.

(P.S. Self couldn’t stand the graphic material. She ended the quote just before, so she wouldn’t have to read it again)

So fierce, this story by Rosca is. Self found it in The Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century, edited by Isagani Cruz:

For the flesh, there could be no celebration. One lived for death and died for immortality.

Shortly after this difficult afternoon among the azaleas, her mother was taken ill. She became as faded as the mynah bird kept in a rusty cage. Her death was of no surprise to anyone. Martha herself looked without emotion at the corpse stretched out like a larded fish on the matrimonial bed surrounded by icons, rosaries, medicine bottles, and the vapors of corruption and incense. After the funeral Martha’s father eloped with a married woman; he sent his daughter quaint postcards with European stamps.

Ordered take-out from Crouching Tiger, as it was exceedingly hot, and self was quite out of breath after hauling around 20 buckets of water for the plants. The Man called twice, both times sounding extremely upset because he had been asked to stay late.

“I might have to stay until 9!” he exclaimed.

Self decided that meant he would probably be home at 7 p.m.

And, you know something, dear blog readers? Self was absolutely correct! Shortly after (or before) 7 p.m., The Man walked in the door. Self doesn’t know about you, but coming home at 7 p.m. does not qualify as “late.” 8 or 9 or 10 p.m. can be considered late. Not 7 p.m. In the two hours’ grace provided by this “late” arrival, self managed to:

Water.

Txt son that she would be seeing him shortly (No answering txt from son)

Feed The Ancient One.

Order take-out.

Of course, since Crouching Tiger is a Chinese restaurant, included with the cartons of mu-shu pork and lamb with scallions were two fortune cookies. Self put one on The Man’s desk, and opened the other one. It said: